Prologue

“…It’s cold.”

As soon as I got home, I shivered from the cold.

It’s cold in a house where you live alone. It’s not just cold as a physical feeling, but also something psychological.

I don’t have any words to say that I’m lonely to people because I’m over thirty and single.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel inconvenienced and that I’m not lonely, but that doesn’t mean I want to get married without pretending…

A long time ago, people would have said I was a loser woman, but I don’t feel like a loser.

And I’m happy with my life now that I’m free to do what I want.

“Cold.”

Searching in the dark house where no one answered, I found a light switch and turned it on.

The recipe I had this morning, just as I had left it when I went out, was on the table.

“Hot water, hot water.”

I turn on the electric kettle.

When I come home, my usual routine is to drink something hot to warm myself up.

“What should I have today?”

Maybe it’s one of the characteristics of living alone to say something out loud. Even if it’s nothing, I tend to say it out loud.

Even though there is no one to answer me.

In the baskets on the table, there is a collection of homemade yuzu tea, bottles of various flavors, ginger tea leaves, and cans of my favorite white peach oolong tea that I bought on the internet, which I can drink whenever I have hot water.

I think choosing the right one makes life more enjoyable

“It’s cold today, so I’ll have some lemon ginger tea.”

Sliced lemon and ginger are soaked in honey. I soaked the lemon in honey last year. If the lemon is well soaked in honey, it will not go bad. Dissolve this in hot water to make a sweet and warming hot drink perfect for winter. In summer, you can add ice to it and drink it cold. It’s a ginger lemonade, so to speak.

I have an air conditioner, but I don’t use it very often. It’s a twenty-two year old single-story house, so there’s a lot of drafts.

It warms up, but I feel it’s a waste of electricity. It’s not very cost effective.

While the water was boiling, I took off my coat and went to the bedroom.

“I knew I’d forgotten it here…”

I was a little relieved to find my cell phone, which I had left at my bedside.

The pale pink-gold hue of the phone was three years old. The kids at work often tell me that they don’t have such a thick cell phone nowadays. Every time a new model is released, I get confused, but I can’t find one that I like out of all of them, so I still can’t buy a new one.

When I looked at the screen, there were seven incoming calls on it.

I guess it depends on the person whether seven calls is a lot or not after half a day without looking at it, but for me, it’s a lot more.

“Hey, that’s Sagisaka-senpai…”

There was a rare voicemail, so I played it back.

“Maya-chan? This is Sagisaka. I don’t have any emails or returns, so I probably forgot my phone, but please call me when you get back…I have a job to do.”

“…Sorry. That’s right~”

I guess it’s kind of a habit of people who have lived alone for a long time to talk to the TV and voicemail and all that stuff.

I put my hand on my cell phone and apologized quietly.

I, Izumi Maya, am a pastry chef by profession and a temporary cook at a wine bar on the side.

Maybe I should call myself a Patissier because I’m a woman, but my title on my restaurant’s business card is Chief Pastry Chef, so I always call myself a pastry chef. Whether it’s my day job or a second job, I just say I’m a chef or something related to cooking when I call myself that.

My day job is working at a fruit tart shop on a back street in Ginza, a popular shop that is often featured in magazines.

I’m one of the three chiefs.

There are 12 pastry chefs in the shop, including apprentices, and we are in teams of four.

One of the privileges of being a chief is that I don’t have to serve the customers. When I’m serving customers, I get to hear what they have to say, which is great, but I prefer to make things, so I was happy when I was promoted.

I don’t hate my job, but it’s a bit lacking in some ways.

Of course, in the restaurant, the recipes are strictly set, so there’s no room for me to get creative, and it’s a bit stressful to say that I can only make the same thing day in and day out, even if it’s slightly different depending on the season.

It’s my other workplace that makes up for it.

Once or twice a week, I work in the kitchen of a wine bar owned by the husband of one of my seniors who used to work at our restaurant, only on the night before the restaurant is closed on a rotation basis.

They have a menu for drinks, but no menu for food. One of the bar’s main selling points is to make dishes that go with the wine that has been chosen, using the ingredients purchased that day.

The open kitchen counter is always being watched by customers, and not having a menu is not easy to do, so it’s not easy to relax. We communicate with the customers to decide on the menu, so it’s all about the food, but it’s very serious business! I feel like that. I love that moderate sense of tension.

The pay is low for such a late night job and it can be a bit hard, but I get to learn the taste of wine while being trained by customers who are very picky about their tastes, so working here is an important part of my time.

People often say that working on a day off isn’t a vacation, but you could think of it as a hobby.

Most people spend their time on hobbies on their days off from work. It’s the same as that.

In my case, I am able to kill two birds with one stone by doing what I like to do and also get paid for my part-time job.

“Are you busy…? Senpai?”

I returned to Sagisaka-senpai, but it didn’t take long.

I put in a text message and stand in the kitchen.

Many cooks don’t like to cook at home, but I do it at home too.

I do a lot of research as well, so it’s not uncommon for me to come up with innovative menus. It’s a good idea to be responsible and eat until the very end of the meal…There are some things that you just can’t eat.

It is said that an old woman who loved cooking once lived in this one-story house, which is far from the landlord.

Because of this, the kitchen is quite well equipped.

The kitchen has been designed with a lot of thought, and it’s quite convenient to use, and best of all, it has an oven. It is very rare to find a kitchen with an oven like this in a rental house.

The oven was the main reason I decided to rent this house.

My dinner menu today was oden.

When I make oden, I use an earthenware pot. Once it’s cooked, I wrap it in newspaper and wrap it in a blanket to keep it warm. If I do this in the morning, the flavor of the oden will be soaked in by the time I come home. It’s a way of cooking to keep the food warm. There are special pots and pans for this, but I don’t need them at all. I can cook rice in an earthenware pot and use it in various ways, so a large earthenware pot is a necessity even if I live alone.

While I was heating up the oden, I realized that I made sautéed daikon radish and carrot peels.

There’s no mustard…

Oden without the mustard is like pudding without the caramel sauce! I adamantly demand mustard! Well, I’m trying to get excited, but I live alone. I’ll have to go buy it myself.

It can’t be helped.

I decided to go to the convenience store, which is a three-minute walk away, to buy something.

The supermarket is cheaper, but it’s a bit far. I don’t feel like going at this time.

It’s very noisy everywhere these days. It’s better still because the main street is close and there are many streetlights around here. In such a case, I am glad to be in the city.

I was relieved to see the light of the convenience store.

I feel relieved when I saw the signboard with that logo.

I am originally from a mountainous area in Hokkaido, but it has been more than 10 years since I came to Tokyo.

The light at the crosswalk turns green.

The moment I step out, I hear a deafening squeak of brakes and someone’s scream.

-shine-

The moment I thought I knew why I was dazzled, my body swooped into the air and then my consciousness whitened out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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